Beekeeping

Car sticker this morning. I kept bees myself, ooh, 40 years ago, and  never had any cross ones. When I took the top off the hive to check it over, there was a gentle rise in the hum, as if to say hello, and that was that. Except the first time I was taking honey off, and I didn't know there was a hole in the crutch of my boiler suit, and they found it.

How I came to have them is a bit weird. Work colleague Richard came up one day and said, you've got a strip of woodland, haven't you? Yes, I said. Well, I've just bought 3 hives and I wonder if I could keep them at your place.

I thought, that sounds interesting and said OK. Then he looked shifty and said, the thing is, I can only afford one. Can you buy the other two? Ok-a-ay I thought. Talk about learning on the job with a book in one hand.,

It gets sillier. The three hives originally came from the same colony. Identical triplets if you like. My two were sweet tempered as you could want, because I chatted to them, and looked after them gently. Richard on the other hand was scared of his, made too much smoke and made the bees feel threatened, shook the hive around when he took the top off, and got chased all round the woods.

I gave it up when I started working in the horrible City of London, adding four hours to my day. I regret it. We thought about getting a hive now, but what with varroa and mad farmers spraying the countryside to death, gave it a miss. Sad though.